This book explores the means of controlling water for irrigation in India and Nepal. It looks at water sources and technologies in use and institutions evolving with them, and their adaptation under new policies and agrarian change. The various field studies conducted in India and Nepal document the complexities of water control in irrigation systems, and introduce concepts for their interdisciplinary analysis. The plurality of technological and institutional choices of irrigators, engineers, and policymakers show their dynamism in meeting new water challenges.

• List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes


• Acknowledgements


• List of Abbreviations


• Introduction: Technology and Institutions in Irrigation Water Management-Match or Mismatch? (Dik Roth and Linden Vincent)


• 1. Analysing Water Control: Interdisciplinarity, Socio-technical Approach, and Institutions in Water Management (Linden Vincent and Dik Roth)


• 2. Decentralization, Water Rights, and Markets: Bridging the Technology-Policy Gap in Indian Irrigation (Vishal Narain)


• 3. The Local Politics of Policy in the Andhra Pradesh Irrigation Reforms, India (Bala Raju Nikku)


• 4. Irrigation Technology and Irrigation Management Reform: The Case of the Terai Region in Nepal (Puspa Raj Khanal)


• 5. Irrigation Technology, Agro-ecology, and Water Rights in the Mid-hills of Nepal (Umesh Nath Parajuli)


• 6. Groundwater Irrigation Development, Conjunctive Use, and the Evolution of Water Use Complexes in the Nepalese Terai (Suman Rimal Gautam)


• 7. Social Differentiation and the Politics of Access to Groundwater in North Gujarat (Anjal Prakash)


• 8. Transformation of Tank Irrigation Policy and Technology on the Interface of a Recursive State-Society Relationship (Esha Shah)


• 9. Property Rights, Water Resources, and Technology: The Missing Ecological Link (Jyothi Krishnan)


• 10. The Political Economy of Tank Management in Tamil Nadu (R. Manimohan)


• 11. Microhydel and Irrigation: Is Any Other Water Technology Different? (Amreeta Regmi and Linden Vincent)


• 12. Boundary Concepts for Interdisciplinary Analysis of Irrigation Water Management in South Asia (Peter P. Mollinga)


• Glossary


• Bibliography


• Notes on Contributors